In 1920, before it was even called the National Football
League, 14 teams debuted in a professional football league known as the American
Professional Football Conference. It didn't become the NFL until June 24, 1922.

A total of 269 players made up the 14 teams, the smallest
roster totaling 14 (Muncie), the largest 28 (Cleveland).

Note the disparity in games played. Canton played 13.
Muncie played one.

In those early days, pro football's founding fathers had
some pretty silly rules.

The silliest: Substitutes weren't allowed to talk when they
came into the game. The powers-that-be had a mania about coaches sending in plays from the
sidelines. So referees were instructed to watch the new player to make sure he kept his
mouth shut.

If a team made multiple substitutions, the umpire then
helped maintain silence.

Uniforms of the day were drab and the jerseys purposely
dark so they would hide dirt. Players had one uniform. When pants were muddied, they were
allowed to dry, then the caked mud was scraped off with a wire brush.

The Duluth Eskimos, however, had the most inventive
uniforms in the league. Though the franchise lasted five seasons, the players ran onto the
field wearing three-quarter length mackinaws with lined hoods which gave them an authentic
Eskimo look. The coats had igloos and the team name stitched on the back. The uniform
colors were white with midnight blue numbers and piping.

In these days of multi-million dollar contracts and salary
caps, consider the unusual agreement signed by the legendary Jim Thorpe for the 1925
season with the New York Giants.

Thorpe, whose physical skills were badly eroding because of
age and a worsening drinking problem, was paid $200 per half-game.

He rarely could play more than that. He was 38, in poor
condition and had a chronically bad right knee. Three games into the season, the Giants
released Thorpe after he was involved in a late-night drunken fight at a local restaurant.

How good was the brand of football played in the NFL's
first decade?

Oftentimes, not very. Unless you liked defense.

Almost two-thirds of all games from 1920 to 1932 were
shutouts. In the inaugural season of 1920, only four of the 40 games were not shutouts.

Steadily, with rules changes and the progression to a
slimmer, more aerodynamic football, and the offense finally picked up.

The worst year statistically was 1926, when the first rival
American Football League raided NFL rosters for talent. Of 116 NFL games in 1926, 86 were
shutouts, and 10 were 0-0 ties. An average of 15.3 total points were scored in each game.

But the worst day probably came on Oct. 7, 1923, according
to "The Pro Football Chronicle," written in 1990 by Dan Daly and Bob O'Donnell.

You might recall that last season, the Green Bay Packers
wore patches celebrating the 75th anniversary of Packers football.

So why is the NFL celebrating its 75th anniversary a year
later?

Actually, the beginnings of the Packers' franchise came in
1919 when Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, a pair of young football players, organized a
football team and went on to play 11 games against teams from Wisconsin and upper
Michigan.

Lambeau worked in Green Bay for the Indian Packing Company
and talked his employer into putting up some money to purchase equipment. That's how they
became known as the Packers.

After a two-year hiatus, for various financial reasons, the
Packers joined the NFL in 1922.

Salary cap is nothing new in the NFL.

In 1923, in fact, the league put a limit on player payroll
per game: $1,800.

HIGHS

In 1934, the Detroit Lions set an NFL record that has yet
to be surpassed. The Lions shut out seven consecutive opponents to open the season.

During that streak, no opponent was allowed inside
Detroit's 20-yard line. The Lions allowed only 835 yards all year. Opponent's
pass-completion percentage was less than 33 percent, and the secondary intercepted at
least 19 passes, though statistics of the day are incomplete.

It took 23 ballots, but on January 26, 1960, Los Angeles
Rams general manager Pete Rozelle, a compromise candidate, was selected commissioner of
the NFL, replacing the deceased Bert Bell.

Bell had died of a heart attack at Philadelphia's Franklin
Field on Oct. 11, 1959.

Rozelle's vision helped market the NFL into what it is
today. He is the man considered responsible for pro football's television explosion.

Nov. 8, 1970, Tulane Stadium, New Orleans. At the time,
many considered it foolhardy.

It turned out, however, to be one of the most exciting
moments in NFL history.

With seconds remaining in the game, New Orleans Saints
place-kicker Tom Dempsey, a man born with half a right foot and a withered right hand,
trotted onto the field to attempt a 63-yard field goal that would give his club a 19-17
victory against the Detroit Lions.

It was a fine time for the game that many believe is the
greatest in the NFL.

The Baltimore Colts and New York Giants met in Yankee
Stadium to decide the 1958 NFL championship, and the Dec. 28 game was being telecast to a
nationwide audience.

Just a few years earlier, the league had installed the
"sudden death" overtime rule, and on this day, the Colts and Giants were tied
after regulation at 17.

After the Giants punted on their first overtime possession,
the Colts took over at their 20-yard line. It took quarterback Johnny Unitas 13 plays to
march the Colts the 80 yards to victory. Alan Ameche ended the game 8:15 into overtime
when he dove off right tackle from the 1-yard line.

For the first half of the 1960s, the upstart American
Football League battled big-brother NFL for a share of the pro football spotlight.

When, after five years, it was obvious this was one rival
league that wasn't going to go away, the NFL figured it had to do something. Or go broke.

The war between the leagues escalated to such a point in
1966 that the two leagues spent a then-unheard of combined $7 million to sign their 1966
draft choices.

Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt and Dallas Cowboys'
general manager Tex Schramm held a series of secret meetings that culminated in the June
8, 1966 announcement that the two leagues would merge and expand to 28 teams by 1970. All
existing franchises would be retained, and no franchises would be transferred out of
metropolitan areas.

Congress approved the merger on Oct. 21, and in the next
two years, two more NFL franchises began play, New Orleans and Cincinnati.

The leagues decided that before league play would begin in
1970, the separate league's champions would meet in an AFL-NFL World Championship game.
The first game was January 15, 1967.

After the first two title games, Hunt saw his daughter
playing with a toy called a "Super Ball."

The rest is history.

LOWS

In the 75-year history of the NFL, several players have
dropped dead shortly after games.

No one has actually been declared dead on the field. The
closest thing to an on-field fatality came on Oct. 24, 1971, when Detroit Lions wide
receiver Chuck Hughes collapsed in Tiger Stadium going back to the huddle near the end of
a 28-23 loss to the Chicago Bears.

He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead an hour
later of a heart attack. Just before collapsing, Hughes had been sandwiched by two Bears'
defenders while catching a pass. He seemed unfazed, though. It was his only catch of the
season. "His heart stopped on the field," a Lions team doctor said afterward.
Doctors later attributed Hughes' death to a degenerative arterial disease. He was 28.

After the 1948 opener between the Cardinals and Eagles,
Chicago's Stan Mauldin died in the locker room two hours after the game of a heart attack.

In 1954, three hours after a game, Washington tackle Dave
Sparks, 26, died of a heart attack. In 1960, AFL player Howard Glenn, 24, of the New York
Titans, died of a broken neck not long after a game.

Stone Johnson, 23, a wide receiver for the Kansas City
Chiefs, died in 1963, eight days after suffering spinal cord damage in an exhibition game
against Houston.

An 8-yard slant pattern in a practice game the NFL likes to
call "preseason" affairs. A dive for an errant pass. A crash of helmets.

And New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley,
then 26, would never walk again.

The hit, by Oakland Raiders free safety Jack Tatum, seemed
benign enough at the time. But Tatum's right shoulder hit Stingley directly in the face
mask.

Stingley dropped to the Oakland Coliseum turf and felt
nothing. "I wasn't in pain, or at least I couldn't feel any," Stingley would
later say. "I just couldn't move. I couldn't feel my feet or my arms or my
body."

Patriots trainer Tom Healion realized the severity of
Stingley's injury quickly. Healion asked Stingley to squeeze his hand. No movement. He
asked Stingley to move his feet. No movement.

"Am I going to be all right?" Stingley kept
asking Healion.

Finally, Healion told him, "No, you're not."

One of the worst decisions NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle
ever made, and the only one he admitted he regretted was to play NFL games two days after
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 24, 1963.

Still, 336,892 fans showed up at seven different game sites
coast-to-coast, including three sellouts, at Yankee Stadium, Franklin Field in
Philadelphia and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

Many in the nation's sports press panned Rozelle's decision
to play.

Wrote Jimmy Cannon: "In times of national bereavement,
I think our toys should be put aside."

COMPARISONS

In 1920, the year of the NFL's birth, the average price of
one gallon of gasoline was 30 cents. In 1994, a gallon costs $1.40.

The median price of a new home was $6,296 in 1920. It's
$150,000 in 1994. A loaf of bread could be had for 11 cents in 1920, but in '94, it's
$1.39. Washing that bread down with a quart of milk would have cost you 17 cents in 1920
as opposed to 90 cents today.

Sending a first-class letter in 1920? The stamp cost you 2
cents. And it probably reached its destination. In 1994? It's 29 cents. Will it get there?
It's a real crap shoot.

The most obscene inflationary figure? An NFL franchise in
1920 cost $100. And just about all of the owners couldn't even afford that, so most didn't
pay it. Cost of the two most recent expansion franchises in Carolina and Jacksonville? A
mere $140 million. And you can bet the money will be collected.

NAMES WORTH NOTING

The age of great nicknames is, sadly, a thing of the past.
Pro football was, however, once a great treasure trove of colorful monikers.

Lots of people like to point to Super Bowl XXV, the New
York Giants' 20-19 victory against the Buffalo Bills, as the greatest Super Bowl ever.

How can you include the Buffalo Bills, the Super Bowl's
all-time losingest loser, in the greatest of anything?

You'll recall in that one, Bills place-kicker Scott Norwood
missed a last-second field goal that would have given the Bills the victory. A missed
field goal. The greatest ever?

Not a chance.

The best Super Bowl ever played was XXIII in Miami, when,
with 3:20 remaining in the game, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana drove the
Niners 92 yards in 11 plays in just over two minutes to overcome a 16-13 Cincinnati
Bengals' lead for a 20-16 victory.

Montana threw a 10-yard scoring pass to John Taylor for the
winning points with 34 seconds remaining in the game.

That's what greatness is all about.

Remember "The Ice Bowl?"

Who could forget. It was Dec. 31, 1967, Green Bay, Wis. Not
exactly tropical climes.

So when the day dawned in that quaint little football
village and the temperature read minus-15, and the wind was howling . . . well, you'd
think the home standing Packers might have something of an advantage over the Dallas
Cowboys.

But there it was, less than a minute remaining and the
Cowboys leading, 17-14, and the Packers poised on the Dallas 1-yard line.

Twice Donny Anderson attempted to push it into the end
zone. Twice he failed. The Packers called their last timeout, eschewing a field-goal
attempt that could have tied things and sent the proceedings into sudden death.

Quarterback Bart Starr huddled with Coach Vince Lombardi on
the sideline and they decided to call one last running play.